


My Lady's Payne

by sbarmarj



Series: The Lion's Pride [6]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Jaime will be a good father, Post-Canon, Unrequited Love, Will never happen in canon, even if he doesn't know it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 12:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3119846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbarmarj/pseuds/sbarmarj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“How…how did you know it was right to join to the Kingsguard?” </p>
<p>“It wasn’t a choice Pod. Men don’t turn down a king when he commands them to serve.” Jaime could leave it at that. It is the truth, but he has omitted the parts that mattered to him at the time. “I was young, dumb, and a braggart. I wanted the honor, and my arrogance craved it. I knew it was as much about the King putting my father in his place and it was about giving me a place in his guard. That only made it sweeter. One more way for the me to displease my father, and to prove to the world I really was the Lion of Lannister.”</p>
<p>Jaime and Pod have a conversation about love, duty, and swearing oaths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Lady's Payne

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't have this beta'd so all mistakes are mine.

“Out with it boy.”

Pod still hesitates. Jaime will never understand how someone so forward with a sword, who commands other men with a quiet competence, can barely start a conversation with him. 

“I have let you beat me with your right hand, and then with your left. I feel I am owed a boon for my bruises.” Pod blanches, and Jaime assumes he is trying to remember every blow he landed on the older man during their practice bouts. If the childings were here they wouldrecount the entirety of the mock battles including the blows Pod landed. But, Pod suggested they meet in the early morning before most in Winterfell wake. They did not have an audience for the fight, or for this conversation. 

“I didn’t mean…it wasn’t…will my lady be upset?”

“That you have become an excellent swordsman?” Of course that isn’t what Pod means but Jaime enjoys teasing him, even if it is unfairly easy. “Pod do not apologize for your hard work and skill. Its insulting to your teachers.” Its unnecessary to point out that Jaime and Brienne were his teachers. 

Pod looks even more embarrassed. Jaime speaks before the boy can botch an apology. “I should not tease you. Clearly you have something on your mind. I cannot help you with it unless you tell me boy.”

Jaime does not wait for Pod to speak. He knows that this confession will take sometime. He walks to the water pump in the practice yard, and with unexpected grace for a man with a single hand, pumps water into the waiting basin. Jaime drinks several handfuls of the cold water before splashing his face and washing his neck. 

Jaime makes space for the younger man who does the same. Jaime is use to Pod’s size, but he still thinks of the man standing next to him with shoulders wider than his as the slight boy who guarded Brienne with more honor than skill. 

“How…how did you know it was right to join to the Kingsguard?” 

Jaime knows that his face shows surprise. This was not what he was expecting when Pod asked if he could make time for a practice duel. 

“I am sorry, ser. It was inappropriate. I shouldn’t—

“Do not apologize, Pod. You have not insulted me; you have surprised me.” Jaime could tidy the practice blades to give himself time to craft an answer, but Pod does not need a well-crafted answer. He needs an honest one. 

“It wasn’t a choice Pod. Men don’t turn down a king when he commands them to serve.” Jaime could leave it at that. It is the truth, but he has omitted the parts that mattered to him at the time. “I was young, dumb, and a braggart. I wanted the honor, and my arrogance craved it. I knew it was as much about the King putting my father in his place and it was about giving me a place in his guard. That only made it sweeter. One more way for the me to displease my father, and to prove to the world I really was the Lion of Lannister.”

Pod nods. Over the years he has learned much about who Jaime was before his marriage to Brienne. Jaime is not proud of that man, and he doesn’t like to dwell on his choices, but Brienne will not allow him to hide his flaws from the children in their care. She seems to think Sansa and Pod benefit from knowing he worked to make his flaws wither instead of fester. 

Pod doesn’t hesitate to ask his next question, and Jaime knows now that the boy has warmed to conversation this may take a while. 

“Did you regret that you would not have your title, a wife, and children?”

“I could not regret losing what I never wanted or believed that I could have.” He had never wanted Castle Rock, or anything else his father held, and he had only wanted Cersei. No other wife would do for him. “Why are you asking? The Kingsguard no longer exists. No one wears white for the Dragon Queen.”

It’s a bitter truth that his son’s only lasting mark as king was his dissolution of the Kingsguard. Its all that history will remember of King Tommen, first of his name. If it still existed, if he still commanded it, he hopes it would be made up of men like Pod. 

“Did you mean to dishonor your vow to the king?”

“When I killed him?” Jaime is fairly certain that all of the Seven Kingdoms thinks he broke his vow to the Iron Throne when he killed the man who sat on it. 

“No. Cersei was your wife in everything but name. You fathered her children, and were more loyal to her than you were to any king.”

Pod looks nothing like Brienne, which of course makes sense. They aren’t even distant cousins. Tarth was too isolated to have intermarried within the ranks of noble families of Westeros. Brienne does not have any connections to call on, other than the ones she has created with hard work and loyalty. But, Jaime swears there are times he thinks that they share blood. Their unfailing ability to speak of his sister and his love for her as something normal is odd at best. Sansa ignores it, and Tyrion does not even try to understand it. No else discusses it. Its Brienne and Pod who have never questioned that his love for Cersei was true, even if it was more than the love of a brother. 

“I thought my oath to the Kingsguard dishonored my sister.” Jaime actually shudders at the words. He has never denied that he put his sister before all others. The truth doesn’t make it any less appalling. She never honored him like a husband, or even a brother. 

Pod isn’t one to push in a conversation, and he takes a seat on a low bench outside the practice ring. Jaime admires the young man’s confident patience. He was far less secure than Pod at that age even if Jaime wore white and had killed a king. 

“Do you think I dishonor love if I swear an oath to forsake it?” Pod’s question is much closer to what Jaime thought he wanted to talk about. 

“Such an oath is impossible to keep. I never swore to forsake love. I swore not to take a wife, and that I would not sire children. Those are reasonable though difficult promises to keep. How can you ask a man to stop loving his mother, the men he fights with, the man that he guards?” Jaime has learned something of about how love makes duty easier to bear. “I killed Aerys because I felt no love for him.”

Jaime sits next to Pod and takes a moment to enjoy the fact that Pod does not recoil from him. For so many years young men wanted Jaime to teach them how to fight and tell them stories of the Kingsguard, but they never wanted to call him friends. None of them wanted to be seen simply talking with the Kingslayer. Jaime knew he lost his honor that night, but he never realized that he lost the chance to be loved by the honorable until he met Brienne. 

“I never cared for Robert. I did not hate him like I did Aerys, but it never bothered me that I cuckold him for years. I never honored my oath to either king. Maybe I would have if I had loved them.”

“What if I want to forsake love?” Pod’s voice is heavy with quiet sadness, and Jaime wishes he could gather the boy close and tell him that sunlight and hope will come like he did during the long nights of winter. Pod is no longer that boy, and Jaime knows that this night will not end. 

“You can do your duty even if you feel no love. Brienne kept me safe when I was in chains even though she detested me. She did not let my sister chase her out of King’s Landing. She stayed with me to keep her promise to Lady Stark. But, if you do swear an oath without love think well about the weight of that promise. Love makes an oath lighter when duty would drown you.”

“What about the weight of love not bound by duty? Would you have killed Aerys or joined the Kingsguard if your father had let you marry Cersei?”

“Love, even when it is an unwanted burden, does not hurt you. It does not make you hurt others or break promises. Hunt served Brienne by choice and he knew she would never see him as anything other than a comrade. His love wasn’t bound by duty. You say that I loved my sister, and I thought that I did for many years, but what I felt for her was something cancerous. Love may hurt you, it may have no hope, but true love will never poison your promises.”

Pod nods. Jaime is not sure that he has said what the young man needs to hear. He wishes he could tell the boy that love will win out, but they both know its not true. Even if Sansa would let herself love a quiet honorable man, that love would not be enough. Sansa is a queen—not a woman who can love a man. Jaime knows that Pod is not a man who can love a queen in stolen moments and rushed kisses, and that’s the only chance he has with Sansa. 

“Pod, if you join the Nightwatch—

“I never said—

Jaime cuts the boy off with a curt look and slight eyeroll, “I may not be as clever as my brother, but I am able to figure out that you are considering the Wall.” Pod has the good grace to look sheepish. Jaime forgets how young Pod is sometimes. He followed Brienne and Jaime with determination that most men would never match. He never cowered when they fought to keep the night from swallowing the Seven Kingdoms. Like Sansa, Pod was required to become an adult when he was still a child. 

“Pod, the Watch will be lucky to have you, but don’t join them because you are running away. You are a braver man than that.”

“I don’t know what to do Jaime. I could stay here. She needs my sword. My lady is here, and you are too. Maybe being a squire is enough, if that’s how I can serve her.”

“Do you really think that’s enough?”

Jaime understands wanting that to be enough, but he knows that some men are meant for more than dull duty. 

“No. But, what other choice do I have? As you pointed out the White is gone. My name means nothing. It comes with no connections, money, lands, or titles. I am not even a hedge knight that can seek my fortune where I might.”

“You will always have a place here and you know that. Sansa will survive without you, but she will benefit from your service. If you want we will send you to Tarth and sleep better for knowing you are there to keep it safe.” Brienne and he have talked about it more times than he can count these last months. They know that Pod needs the duties of a man, and they both worry about Tarth. 

“What if I want to join the Nighwatch? I…I want to swear an oath to a duty that needs my honor and loyalty. You are right Sansa will survive without me. She values my sword, my loyalty and my honor, but she does not need me. Tarth doesn’t need me; I am not its heir. It needs its lady, you… and an heir. ” 

For the second time in this conversation Jaime is surprised. He never thought that Pod would say anything critical of Brienne. He would like to deny Pod’s statement, but it’s the truth. There is nothing that Jaime can do about Tarth at the moment, but there is something he can do for Pod. 

“Podrick Payne, calling you son would be more burden than gift, and I can’t give you a name, money, or land but I can give you a title, and let you seek your fortune where you will. If that is as a hedge knight I will be proud that I was the knight who made you. If its here, in service to Sansa, I will know her throne is guarded with love. And, if you want to join the Nightwatch, you will bring honor to the Black, Ser.”

Pod stands about half way through Jaime’s speech. Jaime is certain it was not a conscious decision, but the boy’s body reacting to the surprise of Jaime’s words. He has spent enough time with Pod to know that his offer to knight the young man shocks him into silence. 

“I would wait for you to collect yourself and say something, but we must tell Sansa and Brienne that there will be a knighting at noon.”

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I was done with this series and then I write this instead of the brief that I meant to spend to day working on. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading.


End file.
